The sword energy was pale, its edge unrivaled.
Deathly aura surged, cleaving through the earth.
Not only was the ground beneath Arthur's feet sliced apart, but the six layers of defenses laid within it shattered on contact, offering no resistance whatsoever.
They even made the sword energy Arthur unleashed with a sweep of his hand sharper and stronger.
Because-
All six layers of defenses were constructed from deathly aura.
Once Arthur unleashed [Breath of Death], those defenses effectively ceased to exist.
Arthur devoured them all.
Then they filled his [Deathly Aura Slash].
Hum!
A unique radiance flashed and vanished.
Horton was dead.
But not completely dead.
A translucent soul floated out of his bisected corpse.
Standing on the ground above, Arthur looked down.
The young Medium's gaze swept with interest over everything visible through the fissure he had cut open-
A ritual circle ten centimeters wide had been drawn on the pitch-black soil with blood mixed with minced heart tissue. It formed two acute triangles, one large and one small, with their vertices facing each other. A crimson ritual line extended straight upward for about three meters from the junction of those vertices before branching in two. Both lines continued diagonally upward for roughly another meter, ending at two equally sized circles, each with a radius of about fifty centimeters.
From Arthur's angle, he could see a cervical spine with its skull still attached planted inside the smaller triangle. It was very fresh. The blood had already been washed away, but brain matter and tissue fluid still trickled slowly from it. Inside the larger triangle lay seven pairs of eyeballs, facing each other in pairs.
Inside the two equally sized circles lay...
Goat horns smeared with bone ash!
With his wealth of experience, Arthur found bone ash quite easy to